tek's rating: ¾
(Rating for the season collectively; some films I may like more or less than others.)

Bite Size Halloween, on Hulu / YouTube
Hulu; IMDb; YouTube

This is an anthology of horror short films from 2020. (I mean the anthology is from 2020; not all of the films are.) Episodes were released in a different order on YouTube than on Hulu, but since this is a Huluween series, I'm going with the Hulu order. The films are from Fox Digital Studio, or as it's now called 20th Digital Studio, some of them originally for the studio's "Bite Size Horror" anthology.

Season one

Visible (2:35)
Hulu; IMDb; Matt Bieler; YouTube
A girl can hear sounds coming from an empty basketball court, and when she investigates, the ball starts moving between players who must be invisible, which freaks her out. There's a twist ending that I really like.

MeNA (4:11)
Hulu; IMDb; YouTube
A man gets a DNA test from a company called MeNA, and the result isn't quite what he hoped for. I gotta say, I didn't exactly understand what was going on and while the end is disturbing... I didn't really care.

Reborn (2:38)
Alexandria Collins; Hulu; IMDb; YouTube
A girl gets baptized against her will, and then... just when things start to get really interesting, the short ends. I liked it, but I'd prefer a longer film to show what happens next.

Devil Vac (2:14)
Benjamin Kegan; Hulu; IMDb
So... I guess a couple have just moved into a new house, and someone sends them a robovac as a housewarming present, I'm guessing? Or maybe they just got married and it's a wedding present. Whatever. The wife becomes scared of the thing that night, and the next morning there's an ending that I definitely didn't see coming. It's sort of amusing, and sort of terrifying.

Mondays (2:35)
Hulu; IMDb; Michael Thelin
This is from 2017. An office worker doesn't hold the elevator door for an old lady, and later he finds himself being attacked by her in a rest room, in a ghostly fashion. It's pretty weird.

Jane (1:56)
Hulu; IMDb; Quinn Else
A forensic sculptor talks about her work identifying people from their skulls, as she works on her latest project. I knew where the story was going from the start, but it's still creepy AF.

Monstagram (2:59)
Hulu; IMDb
This is from 2017. A mother takes a funny photo of her son in the bathtub, and posts it online, despite her son's warning that a monster will kill her if he doesn't like the photo- and it gets 100 likes. Of course, that's exactly what happens. It's reasonably amusing and horrifying.

Creat(e)ure (2:35)
Hulu; IMDb; Zane Rubin
People are hiding from a creature that can only hurt you if you're afraid of it. So they have to try not to think about it. But the end up dying off, one by one. Then there's an amusing twist ending.

The Mime (2:22)
Feature Creep Films; Gavin Williams; Hulu; IMDb; Mark Lediard
This is from 2019. When a man trips over a mime's collection hat, he mocks her. Then she uses her mime powers to trap him in an invisible box, and things just get worse from there. It's a pretty decent short, just the right mix of creepy and amusing.

Gregory (2:47)
Hulu; IMDb; John William Ross
This is from 2017. An airline wants a passenger to give up his seat in exchange for a voucher, but he is adamant about staying put. So they call in Gregory to remove him. I could tell from the preview thumbnail that Gregory would be a monster, but there is another element to the short that I didn't anticipate, which I think is equally if not more disturbing than Gregory himself. (Though it's probably necessary.)

Don't Go Down to Wildor (2:42)
Hulu; IMDb
This is from 2017. A teenager gets a text from his brother saying he's trapped in the house on Wildor, so he goes to rescue him. The door only opens by pointing a camera at the door, and everything inside the place looks different when looking through the camera. And um... they guy never finds his brother, he just finds a monster. It's a nicely atmospheric and creepy film, but I feel like there's so much more story to be told here that it's just unsatisfying.

Stray (2:31)
Facebook; Hulu; IMDb; Magic Works Production
A mother reads her daughter the story of the Pied Piper at bedtime. Then she puts noise-blocking headphones on her daughter's head. But in the middle of the night, after the mother has fallen asleep, her daughter takes off her headphones, and hears music which leads her out onto the street... Well, it's definitely a creepy film.

Nyx (2:33)
Ben C. Lucas; Hulu; IMDb; Villager Films
There's a space station orbiting the Moon, with a crew of two, one of whom is currently outside making repairs. Suddenly the power on the station goes out, and the astronaut on the inside loses contact with her crewmate. Then she hears a voice asking her to "let me in." I won't say what happens next, but I will say the short is spooky, but could stand to be a bit longer.

Landline (2:37)
Hulu; IMDb
So... there's this old rotary phone that just refuses to be gotten rid of. I don't know what else to tell you.

Clock (3:30)
Alexis Jacknow; Hulu; IMDb; YouTube
A businesswoman is leaving work late one night when she begins seeing a series of sights related to babies, finally finding a baby in her car. None of it is real, but it's definitely weird, and the sort of experience that I can imagine anyone being freaked out by, if they believe it's real.

Eye Exam (3:06)
Hulu; IMDb; YouTube
A woman gets a free eye exam, and things get creepy. That's all I want to say.

Retreat (2:44)
Hulu; IMDb; Jessie Kahnweiler; YouTube
A woman at a meditation retreat starts overthinking everything and wonders if she's in a cult, so she tries to get away. And that's all I wanna say.

Trouble (7:17)
Hulu; IMDb
A Black pianist is hired as a last-minute replacement to play at a plantation wedding. A remarkably clueless white woman guides him to "the loft," former slave lodging that's now mainly used for storage, including the piano. He's understandably unsettled by his surroundings, and... that's all I want to say.

Costume Change (2:33)
Alexis Jacknow; Hulu; IMDb
A boy dressed as a pirate doesn't want to ever take off his costume, despite his mother's concern that he's become obsessed with it. But on Halloween, after he returns home from trick-or-treating, he's finally ready to take off the costume. And... I dunno what else to say, except that the film is pretty funny. (And one of the boy's lines is extra funny in retrospect.)

Summoned (2:39)
Hulu; IMDb
A woman performs a ritual to summon the spirit of her deceased true love. It doesn't go the way she planned. I don't know what else to say, except that it's reasonably amusing. And I like the little song at the end.

Special Delivery (3:21)
Hulu; IMDb; YouTube
A courier is given strict instructions not to open the box she is delivering. Of course she eventually does. That's all I want to say.

Thirst (5:22)
Hulu; IMDb; Stefan Dezil; YouTube
A father and daughter are apparently looking for something to drink in a town where the water has been contaminated and turns anyone who drinks it into monsters with an unquenchable thirst. The only way to avoid them is to not shed a drop of any bodily water. It's the sort of short that feels like it might make a better feature film, but it was fine as it is.

Old Maid (3:31)
Hulu; IMDb; YouTube
Um... it takes place on a bride's wedding day. An Old Maid card is slipped under her door, and things get kind of weird after that. I don't know what else to say. But it is kind of scary, I guess.

Baby (2:42)
Hulu; IMDb; Mary Dauterman
A couple are looking at cats on the internet, hoping to adopt one. The man orders a cat, and the next day it arrives and immediately bites the woman's finger. (Or scratches it, I'm not sure which.) And... things get a bit weird. I didn't find it really scary or funny, but I feel like it has the potential to become more interesting, if the story progressed further. But it doesn't.

This Old House (3:11)
Hulu; IMDb; Robin Cloud
An old woman is very upset when one day a real estate agent comes into her home to show two prospective buyers around, but they all seem to ignore her when she tells them to leave. I think it's pretty clear all along what's going on, but I still felt bad for the woman when she found out.

First Date (4:14)
Hulu; IMDb; Meredith Alloway
Two women come home from a first date, I mean they go to the home of one of the women. Things seem to be going perfectly, until the other woman stumbles upon a secret the first woman is keeping, which is genuinely creepy, in a psychological horror way.

The Lake (5:56)
Hulu; IMDb
Okay, I just didn't get this one at all.

Missing (4:29)
Charlotte Regan; Hulu
A woman tells the police about her daughter who went missing, a few weeks before she was supposed to start university. And... there's a twist ending.

Season two